


flames to dust, lovers to friends, why do all good things come to an end?

by endofdaysforme



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Don't Kill Me, F/F, anyway, but uh, hahahah fuck this is sad i'm sorry, it make sense, let me say i hope this doesn't happen when the farm goes down and i don't think it will, yeah hi break up fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-30
Updated: 2019-04-30
Packaged: 2020-02-10 04:00:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18652489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/endofdaysforme/pseuds/endofdaysforme
Summary: cheryl feels like she should care. but after everything that’s happened she just…doesn’t.cheryl feels like she should care…but she has nothing left to give toni topaz. the world already took everything she had left to give.--aka choni break up when the farm gets taken down.





	flames to dust, lovers to friends, why do all good things come to an end?

**Author's Note:**

> ...
> 
> LOOK I DON'T MAKE THE RULES I JUST WRITE WHAT COMES TO ME AND I WAS LISTENING TO "all good things (come to an end)" AND THIS HAPPENED.
> 
> ANYWAY, TWITTER: @ENDOFDAYSFORME.
> 
> I'M SORRY.
> 
> fic title from “All Good Things” by Nelly Furtado

if toni had to pinpoint the exact point in time where she and cheryl began to fall apart, it’d have to probably be around the time the farm was raided and everything they held so close to their hearts was taken from them.

 

it was no secret, according to everyone else but them in town, that the farm was a cult, something toni hadn’t really been so perceptive to every time someone tried to tell her to stay away from edgar and his passionate ways of healing and nurturing. betty had tried to warn her: toni had denied it. jughead had tried to: toni denied it further. even veronica had attempted it, and so had archie, but toni never saw it that way because why would she?

 

edgar was a good man. he never tried to hurt her during her time at the farm, never tried to manipulate her or deceive her or maim her…he gave her something she always wanted: a family. and seeing cheryl so happy, seeing edgar give her a way to see her brother, it just made the both of them worship the ground that man walked on because of it. 

 

part of her still does.

 

she knows cheryl missed jason every single day that he was gone from the moment he’d left her on the other side of sweet water river, and edgar had given her a way to bring him home, to talk to him, to see his smile, to witness him as alive as he should’ve been from the moment he was taken from her because it wasn’t fair.

 

jason died, and cheryl lost a part of her soul. but edgar had given it back to her.

 

she was happy. and toni was happy that she was happy. because toni got to wrestle with fangs in the hallways of the sisters of quiet mercy again, just like they used to when they were kids. because hearing people laugh at the way they’d play fight brought her back to her childhood, brought her back to who she _used_ to be before jughead had kicked her out of her family and left her with nothing.

 

she was mad at betty and the rest of the town for trying so hard to take that from her. the farm was not a cult, it was not a bunch of mindless zombies following the rule of one man, it was a united family that fought against all odds to stay together.

 

it was everything cheryl and toni were looking for. 

 

they were so happy there…everything was good, everything was _perfect_ until it wasn’t.

 

until edgar had tried to get them to drink from chalices filled with poison and betty had come running in at the last moment to knock the cup from her mother’s hands before f.p had taken edgar and evelyn into custody and everything had fallen apart.

 

toni had begged and pleaded for them to stop, had cheryl fighting right alongside with her while they both watched their family get ripped from them once again.

 

and after that…it all became silent.

 

cheryl stopped talking. stopped eating, stopped drinking, stopped _living_ , and toni felt like doing the same, but watching cheryl fall into that path of destruction had hurt more than losing her family ever could.

 

toni tried. she did. she tried so fucking hard. she tried to bring fangs and kevin back, tried to get the four of them to unite again, to feel that warmth they felt at the farm but it wasn’t the same. kevin and fangs healed and moved on, and cheryl and toni were left grieving for something that clearly didn’t mean as much to both boys as it did to them.

 

toni tried to talk to alice, but betty refused to let her mother see anyone from the farm anymore. polly had disappeared with the twins, had left town without a single word to anyone about where she was going, and everyone else had left town too. because their eyes were opened.

 

edgar was a bad man and he was leading them in a cult.

 

toni doesn’t see it that way.

 

they were her family, and they all left, just like everyone else has in her life. and now she’s losing cheryl, too.

 

three months passed. cheryl started to get better.

 

except she wasn’t.

 

they began bickering over the stupidest things, fighting over god knows what. toni remembers cheryl throwing a glass at her when she placed it on the counter top without a coaster beneath it. toni remembers shoving cheryl back and screaming at her that she was nothing to her.

 

she hadn’t meant it. she hasn’t meant a lot of things she’s said lately.

 

everything had just become a blur of screaming at cheryl, screaming at betty, screaming at everyone and everything and running to the sisters of quiet mercy to walk the empty hallways with tears running down her face while cheryl called her phone incessantly and begged her to come home.

 

toni doesn’t know what home is. maybe she never has.

 

her parents never cared about her, because they left her with an uncle who abused her and hated her for who she was. she thought she found it in the serpents, but jughead kicked her out without a second thought and then refused to let her back in when she was so rightfully wanted to claim what was hers.

 

she thought she found it in the pretty poisons, but they were just a bunch of rebellious teens looking for something fun to do, something fun to be a part of. it wasn’t a family, it was a gang.

 

she thought she found it in cheryl, but the girl chose her brother over her.

 

she’s never belonged. she’s never had someone hold her close and tell her ‘you’re it for me forever’. she’s never had someone put her first.

 

maybe she’s selfish for wanting that. maybe she isn’t. does it even matter? does anything anymore?

 

was it so wrong to want someone to love her?

 

she finishes packing her bag and considers leaving a note, but she knows cheryl won’t read it. cheryl doesn’t care, she hasn’t for a while now. that light in her eyes that used to shine has been dimming with every passing day until every kiss feels lifeless and every touch just leaves toni nauseous. 

 

this isn’t a relationship anymore. it’s just something that exists. 

 

why prolong the torture?

 

maybe cheryl will be happier without toni around. maybe cheryl will be able to move on from her brother being dead without the constant reminder that he was once alive in her mind standing next to her.

 

because toni can see it when cheryl looks at her. the longing, the desire, and it’s not for toni, it’s for what she represents. a life at the farm…a life where her brother was, a life where she got to see him every day even though he was gone. 

 

she’s not in love with toni. she’s in love with the time they had together. especially at the farm. 

 

now? they’re just two people screaming, two people hating, two people so desperate to get away from each other, it just doesn’t seem like it ever existed in another way. 

 

was their relationship ever something filled with love? was their relationship ever something good?

 

_yes…yes it was. you loved her. and she loved you. but people fall out of love…and you two did._

 

toni tries to think of what life might’ve been like for them if the farm had never happened to them. maybe they would’ve continued to fall in love, maybe they would’ve gotten married and had kids and lived the perfect life.

 

the farm destroyed them. but toni doesn’t want to let it go.

 

it was a family. it was something she’s always wanted.

 

and now it’s gone. 

 

just like she is.

 

she finishes shoving her shirt into her duffel bag, hikes it onto her shoulder and leaves her key on cheryl’s dresser before she makes her way out of thistlehouse towards her bike.

 

she doesn’t know where she’s going. she just knows she needs to.

 

riverdale has nothing left to give her. and neither does cheryl blossom.

 

the world has nothing left to give her.

 

\-------------

 

cheryl feels like she should be crying.

 

the second her eyes had landed on that key on top of her dresser, she knew toni was gone. 

 

but instead of bursting into tears, instead of curling up into a ball on top of her bed and letting her anguish take her over, she simply sighed and grabbed the key before throwing heading downstairs and throwing it into the furnace to burn. 

 

she doesn’t feel anything. she hasn’t for months now. 

 

maybe this is better for the both of them. they can’t give each other what they want anymore. 

 

she remembers vaguely in the back of her mind that this morning had ended in her screamed at toni that she hates her. she remembers toni’s tear filled eyes before the girl had left, and she remembers not feeling a single ounce of remorse for her words as she watched her go. 

 

she still doesn’t feel any remorse for them. why should she?

 

maybe they’re true. maybe somewhere deep down inside her, she does hate toni. because she hates everyone.

 

but she never hated jason. 

 

_ah, so now the tears prick your eyes, cheryl…_

 

but it’s not over losing her girlfriend. it’s over losing the one and only person in her life who she knows ever loved her or cared for her.

 

toni wasn’t one of them.

 

maybe once upon a time, she was. because toni fought so hard for them, she really did, but it appears her fight is over and maybe cheryl’s happy about it.

 

maybe she’s sick of toni trying to bring her back when cheryl doesn’t want to come back. 

 

she wants to live in the memories of the farm, the ones where jason would smile at her as she told him about her day. the ones where edgar would give her a hug and tell her he’s happy she’s happy. the ones where toni was happy, too…the ones where toni told her she loved her and meant it.

 

the memories where they weren’t screaming at each other and they weren’t throwing things and crying and begging and trying so hard to fix something that was so broken, it was beyond repair.

 

toni pushed and pushed and cheryl’s had enough.

 

so yes, maybe she is happy that toni is gone.

 

it doesn’t mean the part of somewhere deep in her heart that still feels _something_ won’t miss her.

 

but cheryl’s gotten good at silencing that voice in her head. she’s gotten good at staring at the ceiling for hours on end and closing her eyes and drifting off to the times where she had jason, both when he was alive and when he was dead.

 

she’d rather live in those memories than live with a sullen, moody girlfriend who refused to give her space.

 

they became something they weren’t. they had something good, and it ended. it ended the second f.p jones clapped those cuffs on edgar’s wrists and dragged him away from all of them.

 

maybe she’s better off just as a shell of her former self. maybe she’s been through too much shit to come back from the darkness anymore. maybe she’s traumatized beyond repair, and maybe toni is, too.

 

doesn’t mean they’re perfect for each other.

 

they’re damaged goods. it happens. maybe toni will be better off going wherever she’s going. maybe she’ll find her happiness again.

 

or maybe she’ll throw herself off a cliff like cheryl wants to, and maybe they’ll find each other again in some other lifetime where they actually survive.

 

but not this one.

 

no…

 

cheryl feels like should care. 

 

maybe somewhere deep down, she truly, really does.

 

but her heart is too broken to acknowledge it, and maybe toni’s is, too.

 

they came into this world with a bang, and it ended with not a whimper, but a quick blow of wind on the wick to end the flame before they could even register it was happening.

 

_maybe you’re just not made for love, cheryl…_

 

cheryl feels like she should care. but after everything that’s happened she just…doesn’t. 

 

cheryl feels like she should care…

 

but she has nothing left to give toni topaz. the world already took everything she had left to give.


End file.
